


Skate It 'Til You Make It

by willowsandwonders



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: First Dates, Fluff, M/M, some miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 09:43:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8745313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowsandwonders/pseuds/willowsandwonders
Summary: They're about as terrible at rollerskating as they are at flirting but, hey, they make it work





	

**Author's Note:**

> A story about people not knowing how to roller skate, written by someone who knows just as little about it  
> Hope you enjoy!

     The bus is two stops from the end of the line when Michael decides that Gavin is actually in-fucking-capable of deciding what he wants to do. 

     The  _ idea _ had been to get on the bus and only get off when they saw something that caught their interest to do. That had been about forty-five minutes ago. He hates how Gavin has this way of somehow getting him on board with his batshit insane ideas.

    “So we already passed the movies, bowling, even the fucking shady seafood place, if you happened to want food poisoning again,” he lists off. Gavin just giggles a bit, two beers in against Michael’s one. 

    “You're a menace,” Michael tells him. They're going to end up at some bus station in bumfuck nowhere having done  _ nothing  _ with their Saturday night, courtesy of Gavin being indecisive. 

    Gavin just makes a pleased sound and presses closer to Michael, shoving him further into the side of the bus. He’s gonna have fucking indents in his skin from the window tomorrow, which is what he focuses on instead of thinking too far into the warm press of heat on his right side. 

    “We’re getting off at the next stop,” Michael declares, “I don’t care if it looks like a ‘strip mall for serial killers’, or whatever the fuck you said about the last place.” 

    Again Gavin doesn’t say anything, just nods against his shoulder. Michael kind of wants to ask him if he’s really that tired, if they should just go back, but they’re already too invested in their mystery bus ride. And, besides, Gavin’s probably just playing dead or whatever to keep from taking the blame of getting them into this in the first place. Or, horror of horrors, he has a  _ plan.  _

    His suspicions on the latter are confirmed when Gavin immediately leaps up as the bus rolls to a stop. He’s already got Michael by the arm, tugging him along, so suddenly that Michael almost takes out this old guy trying to make his way down the aisle. 

    “Sorry!” he yells over his shoulder while Gavin kidnaps him, or whatever the fuck he’s trying to do here. 

   Once the bus rolls off and they’re left under a very suspicious, flickering streetlight, Gavin grins. Okay, so Gavin is  _ definitely  _ kidnapping him, or something. That’s the ‘I am about to do a horrible thing that I think is funny’ smile. 

    “ _ Michael _ ,” he whispers conspiratorially, “I just had the most  _ excellent  _ idea.” 

    “Yeah?” he prompts, humoring him while he tries to figure out what the fuck the buildings around them are. There’s several neon signs, which generally bodes well, but he doubts Gavin wants to go to the two-star barbecue joint, boasting their ‘$5.00 BBQ corn dog’, whatever the fuck that means, or the hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlor next to it. There’s another building that’s pretty big, but the name is nonspecific, if vaguely familiar, maybe? He can’t fathom why Gavin’s orchestrated this whole thing just to bring them  _ here.  _

    “Do you know how to rollerskate, Michael?” 

    It’s then that he realizes he’s well and truly fucked. That miraculous breakthrough should’ve come to him sooner, given that he willingly got on a bus with Gavin on a Saturday night. He has no idea what Gavin’s playing at, given that he’s pretty damn sure neither of them have roller skated in this  _ decade.  _

    His face must give it away, because Gavin titters and pokes him on the shoulder, the look in his eyes saying he’s very ready to watch Michael fall on his ass. Smug little prick. 

    “Aw, Michael! I’ll just have to teach you, then!” 

    “Please,” Michael scoffs, “Just last week I saw you get on Geoff’s old skateboard and  _ immediately  _ eat shit. And remember those drinks earlier? ‘Cause you had two, and I don’t think you normally chug those before trying to test out your motor skills.” 

    “But it could be like an experiment, Michael! And those drinks were just  _ beer.”  _

__ “Which, shocker, has  _ alcohol  _ in it--” 

    While they discuss whether Gavin is or isn’t tipsy, and by extension Michael, who  _ did  _ have that one beer, they drift towards the entrance. Inside is about what he’d expected: a dull front room with some bored high school kids working, lit by flickering fluorescents. The door to the rink has colorful lights spilling out from underneath it, and he can hear some faintly thrumming music, so at least that’s a good sign.

    Next to him, Gavin gags. “Smells like cat piss in here,” he complains, hand over his mouth. 

    “Careful,” Michael stage-whispers, “or they’ll spit in your skates.”

     Gavin gasps in mock horror, but he shoots a quick look at the girl behind the counter, like he’s scoping out whether or not she’d do something like that. She looks like she could give less of a shit about their comments, or if a massive tornado took them all out that second, so he relaxes while Michael buys his skates. He goes for the quads, because there’s no way in hell he’s going to survive in-lines.  

    Gavin opts for some quads as well. Which is good, because Michael doesn’t very much feel like scraping British idiot bits off the ground. 

    There’s some folding chairs against the wall for them to lace up. Well, for Michael to lace up, apparently, because Gavin is a lazy bastard that throws his legs into Michael’s lap and makes him tie them while he sits back and checks his phone. Michael ties them right, or at least what he assumes is right, because the last fucking thing he needs to deal with tonight is Gavin complaining that his feet hurt. 

    When he’s done, he tips Gavin off onto the floor. The cacophony of noises that Gavin starts firing off  _ immediately  _ make the long-ass bus ride worth it. He goes to stand up to give him a hand, almost falling himself when the skates try taking off for the races without him. 

    “Je _ sus,”  _ he shouts, windmilling his arms. From the floor, Gavin laughs. He shakes his head, dodging when Gavin snakes out an arm to trip him, and does this strange ‘holy shit don’t fall’ march towards the doors. Gavin follows, moving like a newborn baby deer, maybe, if that deer was also blindfolded and walking on a vat of pure vaseline. 

      “We’re gonna fucking die,” Michael huffs, and swings the doors open. 

      He's immediately met with a wave of bad 80’s music and spinning neon lights. The rink is pathetically empty, only an employee and a handful of kids going around it. There's a tired old disco ball spinning above the center. Before he can drink in more of the stunning mediocrity, Gavin has him by the arm, tugging towards the opening in the low wall surrounding the rink. 

       He almost eats shit  _ again,  _ just from not being able to keep the skates under him, which doesn't bode well for his upcoming performance. 

      Gavin doesn’t look as worried, though. So for a brief moment he thinks Gavin might surprise him, might have him beat, but then he watches as Gavin steps confidently onto the rink, moves forward--

      And then Gavin’s scrabbling for balance and face-planting into the cheap veneer. Michael immediately doubles over laughing, arms wrapping around his chest because  _ holy shit,  _ he’s gonna laugh so hard he pops a lung. 

    Gavin makes a dismayed sound from the floor, pushing himself up onto his elbows to stare up at Michael. He doesn’t see any blood or some horrible injury on his face, so he takes that as permission to keep snickering. 

    “Like you could do any better,” Gavin grumbles. He sounds whiny enough that if Michael wasn’t laughing so hard he’d  _ have  _ to imitate that back at him. Fucking moron. The people on the rink are staring at them, but Michael can barely tell through the tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. 

    Once he recovers, still huffing out a laugh when he envisions that absolutely  _ glorious  _ failure, (which he should’ve fucking filmed), he gets onto the scuffed rink and near about follows in Gavin’s footsteps of tasting floor.  _ Surely  _ he can beat Gavin at this, though. At least he has a sense of balance going for him, or at least one better than Gavin’s.

    But, as it turns out after five minutes of desperate wall-hugging, Gavin’s right. Or, more accurately, Michael’s not any better than him because their skating abilities both scrape the bottom of the barrel. They’re both fucking  _ atrocious  _ at it. 

     “This isn’t like ice skating  _ at all! _ ” Gavin cries as he near about tackles Michael into the wall in an effort to keep his own balance. The motion’s been a pretty constant occurrence so far, as Gavin insists on trying to skate next to him and using Michael as his own personal wall. And they haven’t even finished a single goddamn lap around the rink yet. 

    “Why would it be like fucking  _ ice skating?  _ They’re two completely different--” he breaks off into a startled yelp as his left skate decides it really wants to fly forward. “And why the hell would  _ you  _ know anything about  _ ice skating  _ when you can’t walk in a fucking  _ straight line! _ ” 

     “As a kid I went sometimes!” Gavin protests, but there’s no heat in it. His smile is happy and relaxed in a way that makes Michael’s stupid heart do a little flip. 

    “Yeah, I bet your lumpy Thames ice really prepared you for this.” His words kind of fall out without him paying attention. He doesn’t have to overthink things with Gavin. And he can’t help but notice that the lights look so much nicer now that he’s under them, bathing everything in a pinkish glow. 

     Gavin splutters. “I didn’t live in London!” Because of course  _ that’s  _ what he latches onto. Then he stumbles, grabs hold of Michael’s arm for balance, and doesn’t let go. 

      Michael decides he really does like roller skating, after all. 

      A few minutes further into their skating shamble, they wind up behind two people holding hands. Unlike Michael and Gavin, they appear to be leagues more competent, so they’re out of earshot almost immediately. Michael’s watching them idly, trying to figure out how the hell they’re moving their legs to make the skates glide so effortlessly, when Gavin leans over to whisper in his ear.

     “Do you reckon they’re on a date?” Michael fights not to react to Gavin’s breath on his neck. 

     “Does it matter?” He answers, resolutely staring ahead. 

     In the corner of his eye, Michael sees Gavin squirm a little. “Well...roller skating might be a good first date, yeah?” 

     Michael stops skating, not like he was going that fast anyway, and rests a hand on the wall to stay in place. “And?” His heartbeat picks up ever so slightly. Gavin added  _ first _ date into that made up scenario of his. There’s literally no reason for him to do that, unless he’s trying to fucking imply something about his grand ‘let’s get on a bus, just the two of us’ scheme that had landed them here. 

     “It could be romantic! Kind of casual, but fun, and you can hold onto each other and, I don’t, I don’t know--” His voice trails off, a little strained, defensive. Neither of them are looking at each other. He becomes painfully aware of Gavin’s hand on his arm, of where he’s unconsciously playing with the loose fabric of his jacket. 

     Michael opens his mouth to say ‘ _ Bring me some flowers and we’ll talk,’  _ then shuts it. That’s too big a leap, to assume Gavin’s talking about the both of them now, that this _ is _ a date. Hypothetically, it does look like one. Two people glued to each other in a roller rink, galaxy narrowed down to the other. 

     And Gavin’s been more handsy recently, always poking at him, nudging him, taking up his attention whenever they’re in the same room. Michael hasn’t minded, far from it--scarily okay with his focus always immediately singling Gavin out. There’s been other, smaller things, too. Gavin does little favors for him and Michael easily returns them, like grabbing two Red Bulls out of habit now, or getting Gavin’s favorite whenever he picks up breakfast. He has to admit he’d been considering that...that  _ something  _ might be there. 

     It’s easy. Or it  _ normally _ is, at least, because now the silence between them is starting to become stifling, both of them staring at the shadowy corner of the rink like it’s become the most interesting thing in the world. Michael needs to say something _ ,  _ anything, but his jaw is glued shut. He’s getting worked up over nothing, some throwaway comment that Gavin’ll forget about by tomorrow, but-- 

     Gavin takes his hand off of Michael’s arm. 

     He feels the absence immediately, needs to fucking start  _ talking  _ and fix this _ ,  _ but whatever the hell’s happening between the two of them gets cut off by a frankly horrendous, screeching burst of static from the speakers. It snaps him out of his head and he whirls around, trying to figure out what’s going on. 

      “Sorry,” comes the static-y voice of the sound guy over the intercom. “This damn thing’s always on the fritz--”

       The music returns, at first the sort of promising beginning lines of a Violent Femmes song, then that cuts off to be replaced by the dreadfully familiar notes of Take On Me, which, in Michael’s opinion, is one of those special things free to remain in the 80’s. 

       And then Gavin’s in his line of sight again, apparently having shaken off whatever weird ass moment they just had. “We should go  _ dance,  _ Michael!” He’s referring, of course, to the far more capable skaters who’ve been going around the center of the rink, showing off that it is, in fact, possible to dance while skating. 

       “Gav, this song is  _ terrible, _ ” he counters. It’s a weak defense, because then Gavin will just drag him to the center as soon as the next song starts. Sort of hard to stop someone when both of you are on wheels, and can just be shoved all around. And Michael definitely doesn’t have to remind Gavin that they certainly aren’t capable of  _ dancing  _ in these things. They can’t even  _ skate.  _

        But, it  _ is  _ the perfect opportunity to get rid of any lingering weirdness..

       “When this goes to shit you’re paying for my hospital bill.” Apparently, those are the magic words. Gavin lights up, grabs Michael by the arm again, and makes a valiant effort to tug them towards the middle. The tension in Michael’s shoulders falls away when he catches the delighted look in Gavin’s eyes. 

      By some divine miracle, they make it to the center of the rink. The couple from earlier are there, one of them skating backwards as easy as breathing. He takes a second to watch the two of them spin around, infinitely impressed by how goddamn  _ graceful  _ they are at it. 

      Michael turns back to Gavin to see him windmilling in place, skates moving in opposite directions to force him into a half-split. He’s making idiotic squawking noises as he tries to stay upright, little specks of light from the disco ball hitting him in the eyes and making him squint. God, Michael wouldn’t have it any other way. 

      He helps pull Gavin back onto his feet, almost overwhelmed by how much he’s  _ feeling  _ right now. His chest is warm and fuzzy, possibly due to how hot it is directly under the lights, but definitely because of the overwhelming  _ fondness  _ bubbling up there. He lifts his arms up to rest over Gavin’s shoulders, not giving a shit if that’s too flirty or what have you, because he’s really, really fucking happy just to  _ be  _ in this moment. 

      Gavin grabs one of his arms, and for a second he’s confused, but then he realizes he’s trying to fucking  _ spin  _ him. He goes along with it, trying to turn one one foot as much as standing on the brake of the skate will allow him. 

        It’s kind of a success. And then he loses his balance and is tugging Gavin down with him before he even registers they’re falling. They land in a tangle of limbs, Gavin already somewhere between spluttering and that squeaky, delighted laugh of his. Michael joins him once he’s over the shock, and suddenly they’re both in a pile on the floor laughing their asses off. They’re probably being stared at, but who  _ cares,  _ because his heart is light and Gavin’s face is right above his and just as happy. 

      So Michael takes what’s probably a bit of a risk.

      “I think rollerskating could be romantic--if I could stay upright for more than two seconds, of course.” He gives Gavin a second to realize what Michael’s implying, watches his face change from confusion to tentative hope. 

       “Not much I can do about that,” Gavin says softly, “Imagine how I feel, trying to show you a good time and I’m falling all over the gaff.” That’s--that’s  _ close  _ to an admission that this is a date. But not quite. And goddamn it, Michael’s not getting off this floor until he has an answer. 

       “Just so we’re clear,” and, shit, it’s kind of hard to say since he’s still not  _ completely _ sure _ ,  _ but he’s already committed. “You took me on a date without telling me first?” 

       Gavin laughs, eyes sparkling. “It sounds stupid when you say it like  _ that.”  _ Michael rolls his eyes, shifting a little so they're a marginally more comfortable pile of idiots. The angle brings their faces closer together, and Michael gulps. They’re already so  _ close,  _ Gavin taking up every sense he cares to tap into, but he’s not sure if breaching the final gap is too fast, too--

     The song hits its chorus and Gavin moves forward, pressing their lips together. 

     And it’s the easiest thing in the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by a surprise trip to a roller rink with some friends (and my incompetence at it), and partially because I've heard a LOT of 80's music in the past week.  
> Thank you so much for reading! And as always, kudos and comments are always appreciated <3


End file.
